Pacifier Progress

Thought I'd update on the Big Operation going down in our area of the world. No, not that operation. I'm not going there. You can either guess my thoughts or you probably don't want to know (and that's the closest I'm hopefully ever going to come to discussing politics on my blog). I was more referring to this operation. Hey, it feels big when you're living it, okay?

So, the first night, ZL cried for 45 minutes. Seriously, he looked like a little addict going through withdrawal, thrashing around on his bed. It was pitiful. And I thought of Jackie Pullinger as I prayed over him. Fortunately, sleep came eventually. And when he woke up at 5:30 the next morning and got into bed with us (something he does when we're sleeping in), he went back to sleep quickly. No problem.

Night two: he cried for 5-10 minutes. Yay! Only, when he came into our bed at 4:45, he wouldn't go back to sleep. So, I put him back in his bed. And he came back to ours. And ML put him back in his. And he came back to ours. And I put him back in his. This went on until I finally got up with him at about 7:00. Not fun.

Night three: he cried for 2-3 minutes. Whoopee! And when he came into our room in the middle of the night, I took him straight back to his own bed, and he fell asleep. And slept until we got him up this morning.

Okay, so we seem to have the nighttime part of the routine down. Only one problem: Z hasn't taken a nap since we took the paci away. He just will not give in and go to sleep. It's like he's tired enough at night time to make it through not having the paci, but not at nap time. And he's seriously grumpy as a result. As if his recent obsession with the word "no" wasn't enough.

I'm not ready for him to give up naps. And I really don't think he is either. Here's hoping that he'll regain that skill sans paci.

And, for posterity, some classic Z-with-paci pictures.


A classic ZL picture all around. ZL gets overwhelmed in social settings, and we have allowed him to retreat to a Blue's Clues episode on my iPod when necessary. This particular day was on our vacation a little over a year ago, and it had been a long no-nap day. Lunch was late, so we let him chill while we waited for our food.


At the end of a visit to the Children's Museum. Either after ZL was tired of walking or Mommy and Daddy were tired of chasing him. One or the other.


At Wartburg Castle at the end of our trip to Germany this summer. I thought this particular picture was an appropriate representation of this particular week for Z. He spent a lot of time in the stroller. There were just too, too many people for him to process. And it was his first experience (in his memory) with organized childcare. They ended up parking the stroller, with his pacifier and B in it, at the door of his classroom. He would play with the other children and the teachers until it just became too overwhelming, at which point he would retreat to the stroller until he was ready to "face the world" again. A rather creative solution I thought, both on the part of the teachers and Z himself.

We did it! We did it!

Okay, three guesses as to what we finally accomplished last night. And the first two don't count.

(And he only cried for 45 minutes, poor guy. I tried to lay down with him, but it seemed to just be keeping him awake, so ML just sat in the hall to make sure he wasn't getting out of bed, since that's what our others did. He never even tried. Just cried. Hopefully tonight will be better. Especially since he's pretty grumpy today.)

Goofball.

A few months ago, we began to get a little concerned about ZL's communication skills, or lack thereof. Okay, I got a little concerned. ML was pretty sure there was nothing wrong. However, he admitted to not remembering the "talking timeline" of our other kids, so he was willing to do some looking into the situation.

Thinking back, I distinctly remembered having a conversation with JW (our other in-house introvert child) about what he wanted to exchange his pacifier and "buddy" (his bear/blanket thing) for. And I know that we've never had a kid make it to three with a pacifier (well, until now). The "discussion" part is my heads-up that we can get rid of the security items. I feel like I owe them an explanation, since it was really for our convenience that we attached them to the things in the first place (and, boy, is it convenient sometimes; instant comfort on-the-go is a high-value commodity in our life).

Here's the rub: I don't feel like I could have that kind of conversation with ZL right now. Not and know for sure that I was being understood. So, I began to worry. I started with some on-line research (read: I outlined the situation on Sonlight and asked for opinions).

He does not have any tell-tale signs of autism (one of the first things to look for with speech delay at his age): he's snuggly, he doesn't fixate, doesn't do repetitive motions. He obviously has a high level of receptive language: he knows all his letters and letter sounds (from videos), shapes, colors, etc. And he uses appropriate phrases that he's been taught or has heard. When prompted. He just doesn't initiate conversation that much. But he does repeat phrases, whole sets of lines even, from videos he's watched. After watching them just once or twice (then again, he is genetically related to his Uncle CB, so that alone could explain that).

I went so far as to ask my in-laws to bring a book by Dr. James McDonald recommended by the Sonlight ladies. Probably not the best idea. A) They couldn't find the book. B) Grandparents get a little overly concerned about things like this. We're still working on calming them down.

I also called our wonderful pediatrician and made an early three-year check-up for after my in-laws left. I wanted her opinion of the situation.

Of course, even in those few weeks his verbal skills advanced. And, armed with the questions the Sonlight ladies (some of whom were Speech Language Pathologists by profession/training) asked, we noticed a lot of positives: he plays imaginatively, he makes things talk to each other, he initiates affection, he only lines things up once or twice a week (normal for his age).

And it turns out kids who don't feel totally at ease socially (read: introverts) often use lines from videos/TV shows, because they're predictable and can be slotted into the appropriate social setting based on the original context from the show. Makes perfect since to me now that I think about it.

Fast forward to the doctor's appointment: ML hangs out in the living room with the older kids while ZL and I go into the office with Dr. A (love a doctor with a clinic in her home :-). She does the normal measurements, asks the normal questions, and then we get to the whole talking thing. She asks about affection, fixations, repetitive behaviors, and I laugh as I check them off, knowing what she's fishing for (a reaction she expects from me, because she's gotten used to the well-researched-mother type that I am, and bless her, she puts up with it). Then, she interacts with ZL a little while and watches me do so, as well.

Her diagnosis: an introverted fourth child of a mother who is busy homeschooling the older three but in tune with her fourth child. The introverted part meaning he doesn't have much incentive to talk. The busy homeschooling mother part meaning he doesn't get as much of my attention as the older three did at that age. The in-tune part meaning that I know and anticipate what he needs, and he doesn't often have to ask (see "not much incentive to talk"). Turns out, her third child didn't even talk as much as ZL does at this age. Very similar circumstances. He ended up with speech therapy and is fine now.

Since ZL is talking as much as he is and making progress, Dr. A says let's give it six months. If we're still concerned, we can do an initial visit with a speech therapist. Oh yeah, big part of the appointment: the part where she tells me that there's a great English-speaking speech therapist available in-country. Big sigh of relief. It's the same one they used with her son, and she speaks highly of her.

Prescription: be more purposeful in interacting with him and make him talk more.

So, we've been doing that. Do you know how easy it is to let an introverted fourth child just do his own thing? Too easy. We're overcoming that, though. And he's blossoming. He's initiating conversation more. He really is a delight to be around, and I'm glad we're being more focused about getting to know him and helping him make himself known.

As for the making him talk, I was trying to do just that the other day when I was sitting on the floor playing with him (see? I told you I was being purposeful). He was enjoying being tickled, so I tried getting him to ask for more. I got, "Tickle, please." Good, but we're working on moving on from two-word phrases, so I asked him to say, "Tickle me, please." In hindsight, that's a little hard to insert that particular word in there, and I probably should have picked a different hill to die on, but I persisted. After a minute or so, he said, "No, that's alright," and moved on. Goofball. I think the child who can appropriately use the phrase, "No, that's alright" is going to be fine verbally, even if he can't be bothered to get the "me" into, "Tickle me, please." :-P

And I think he's just Uncle CB's nephew (Uncle CB being the person who for years had to label sentences as "original thought" lest everyone assume it was yet another Simpsons line). The other day, I asked him if he wanted some bread, and he started mumbling something a little indistinctly. I asked him to repeat it, and it made me laugh. He was saying, "A loaf of bread, a container of milk, and a stick of butter." Yes, my kids, including ZL, have been very into classic Sesame Street these days.

He's got mouse skills.

My just-turned-three-year-old has mouse skills. I've never had a three-year-old with mouse skills. I've seen them (LGG and AJM come to mind). I've just never had one.

From about age 2, Z knew that hitting any key on the keyboard (kids' computer; he's pretty well trained to leave mine and ML's alone) would take it out of sleep mode. He liked to see it light up. He also learned around that time which button turned the screen on and off, in case it was off when he was hitting said keys.

At about 2 1/2, Z figured out that pushing the space bar would stop and start whatever episode iTunes happened to be resting on. If he was lucky, someone would have left the computer on iTunes and an episode clicked. Then, he could just tap and watch. Only once did he watch a teensy weensy bit of a LOST episode.

A few weeks ago, he discovered the scroll wheel on the mouse (he'd realized a long time ago that the mouse did something; he just hadn't coordinated it all yet). If the computer was on iTunes with either "Movies" (mostly things I've ripped off of DVD's) or "TV Shows" clicked, he would use the scroll wheel to select what he wanted (from the "album cover" shots), and then press the space bar.

Last week sometime, I realized that he had discovered which button on the screen took the "album covers" to full-screen mode so that he could see them better. And that he could maneuver the mouse to that button, click on it, and then use the scroll wheel to pick the show he wanted to watch (LOST was off of their section of that computer a long time ago, don't worry).

So, I decided to give his Dr. Seuss's ABC CD-ROM that I'd bought as his "school software" for this year a trial run. Sure enough, he totally got moving the pointer around the screen to get the different items to do their thing (it's just a point-and-click software; no game to it). And he got that clicking on the arrow in the bottom right moved it on to the next screen. That is, of course, if it wasn't the "B" screen with the bubble that was blown huge and popped. That screen we do.not move on from. Unless forced. Which happens when the rest of us in the room can't take it any longer.

After reading on someone's blog that their three-and-a-half-year-old was playing on Starfall.com, I was curious. So, today with a little extra time I had (read: when I had planned to exercise), I sat Z in my lap in front of the computer, and we checked out Starfall. I really had a hard time believing it. He even gets the fact that you can't click when the cursor's not a hand. Where did he learn that?!?

I let him choose which letters he wanted to play through. One of them had a puzzle as the final section. He very deftly clicked on the pieces and put them in their places (just a simple shapes puzzle, lest anyone be too impressed). (Fortunately, the program grabs the pieces when you click on them. I think click-and-drag would be a little much even for Mouse Boy.)

I apologize to anyone who's thinking, "What's the big deal? All my kids were playing on the computer already at that age." None of our older three were, although they're all fine with it now, so it just took me by surprise.

Plus, it's really cute!

I'm sure some day some girl will be impressed with his great skills.

Happy Birthday, Z!

This is going to be close to a wordless post. Today was Z's birthday party (his birthday was last Friday). Several friends with young kids came over, we had cake (yay, ML; his cake decorating just keeps getting better & better), and we opened presents. Short but sweet (like this post :-).

Pardon the quality of the photos. We win Mother and Father of the Year Award for not being able to find our camera for the entire party. ML found it later, but it was, of course, not charged. We'd been looking for it for several day in anticipation of needing it for birthday stuff, but today (after all of the birthday events, of course) ML went back and looked in the drawer where it was supposed to be and...it was there. It was just buried. :-/ So, we took pictures with ML's camera, hence the graininess. Sorry!